


Dahlia

by bluetigerlilies



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Character Study, Child Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Historical, Hurt, Kid Fic, M/M, Protective Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Sannio earthquake of 1688, Team as Family, but also fluff, original child character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28859823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluetigerlilies/pseuds/bluetigerlilies
Summary: Joe shushes the child softly as he gently pries a hand from her mouth, and her spit mingles with dirt as it dribbles down her chin. He bounces her on his hip a few times and Andy takes a step closer.Nicky moves before she does, extending a helpful hand to the child in Joe’s arms. He tugs a package of gauze from one of the pockets in his jacket and opens it carefully, then proceeds to clean the child’s face with it, gentle strokes down the corners of her eyes and the side of her mouth. The child openly sobs now, and Joe nods to Nicky, motioning for them to get into the van. Nicky nods back and checks the perimeter once before turning to Andy to give her the signal that all the children are in the van and hopping in the back with Joe and the girl.Andy plants herself in front of the wheel and starts the engine before she hears Joe and Nicky’s signal knocks from the back.“Andy…” Nile starts. Andy looks ahead.“Andy, I need to ask you something.”--After a rescue mission harbouring unexpected children, Nile has questions for Andy about Joe and Nicky. Andy decides to tell her the whole truth.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 24
Kudos: 263





	Dahlia

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags! There aren't much, but they warn that this fic does feature a child death. Other content warnings for brief mentions of human trafficking at the beginning, earthquakes and aftermath, lots of death, and brief suicidal ideation. Worry not, there is lots of fluff as well.

Nile asks a lot of questions. It’s only natural, Andy reasons, for her to have questions about the jobs they choose, their places in the world, why they were destined for immortality, et cetera, et cetera. It’s rare that Andy has answers for her.

They’re completing a rescue mission in Mexico, freeing victims from an American human trafficking ring. Copley had been detailed when he briefed them about the mission, but even he had been unaware that the victims were in fact children. Young children.

Nile shoots questions at Andy’s side rapid-fire, although they sound like they’re more rhetorical this time. “Why didn’t he tell us” and “What kinds of motherfucking monsters…”

Andy places a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her. She waits for Nile to meet her eyes before reassuring her that there will be time to ask Copley questions and time to be angry. But not now, is the implication. Nile understands. She always does, smart and introspective as ever.

Joe and Nicky are lifting the children into the van Andy has brought around--hijacked. The mission would have gone over much smoother and faster if they had one more person, but she keeps those thoughts to herself. She knows Nile is thinking the same thing, though, as she looks from the children to Andy, face pinched in something like pain.

“It’s probably a good thing he’s not here,” Nile says, which catches Andy off guard. Nile has never expressed such a thought--quite the opposite, actually. Andy knows how guilty she’s been feeling for the past few months.

Andy doesn’t get the chance to ask why before Nile speaks again, lifting a frail child under the arms and placing her in the van, “Booker. Because he had children. So it’s probably good that he’s not seeing this.”

Andy hears her teeth clack as her jaw goes tight. She takes in the scene. It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before, hundreds of times. It’s dark, the only light around them coming from the headlights of the van she’s standing next to and the white beams of their flashlights. Joe and Nicky are nearly finished helping the children into the van, speaking to them quietly, trying to calm the few who are crying. Most of them are silent, eyes fixed on nothing, and a few of them are so small they don’t reach Joe or Nicky’s hips at their full height, sucking on their thumbs for some semblance of comfort. Andy can’t see the blood clearly, but she knows her soldiers are covered in it. They had not been merciful to the men in charge of the operation, to say the least.

Andy has seen this before, has seen the blood, the wide, blank eyes, the stunned silence, but it never gets easier. She nods in response to Nile, who is watching her with concern. But Andy’s eyes are latched on Nicky and Joe. Through the corner of her eye, she sees Nile turn her head to follow her line of sight.

Joe is lifting the last child off the dusty ground. So many of them, Andy thinks. The child has to be no older than four, and she is absolutely filthy. Tangled curls, dirt-stained clothes. Her tiny hands, black with dirt and blood, are shoved into her mouth as she weeps quietly, her huge eyes fixed on Joe’s face. Joe shushes the child softly as he gently pries a hand from her mouth, and her spit mingles with dirt as it dribbles down her chin. He bounces her on his hip a few times and Andy takes a step closer, recognizing that he might be about to cry.

Nicky moves before she does, extending a helpful hand to the child in Joe’s arms. He tugs a package of gauze from one of the pockets in his jacket and opens it carefully, then proceeds to clean the child’s face with it, gentle strokes down the corners of her eyes and the side of her mouth. The child openly sobs now, and Joe nods to Nicky, motioning for them to get into the van. Nicky nods back and checks the perimeter once before turning to Andy to give her the signal that all the children are in the van and hopping in the back with Joe and the girl.

Andy plants herself in front of the wheel and starts the engine before she hears Joe and Nicky’s signal knocks from the back.

“Andy…” Nile starts. Andy looks ahead.

“Andy, I need to ask you something.”

Two knocks. Andy drives off, checking the mirrors for followers. She passes a burner phone to Nile and tells her to call Copley.

“Alright,” Andy encourages.

Nile is quiet for a moment but her eyes never leave Andy’s face. Andy can see without looking directly at her that Nile is turned nearly sideways in her seat, facing Andy with her whole body.

“Just say it, kid.”

Nile’s jaw tics. “Joe and Nicky,” she starts, “Did they ever…”

Andy faces her, silently urging her to finish, keeping her face neutral.

Nile swallows. “Like Booker. Did they ever have…”

Nile never finishes her question. Instead, she trails off, waiting for Andy to answer. When no answer comes after several minutes, Nile’s face changes from concern and interest to resignation. She sits back in her seat, knees to her chest, and calls Copley.

Andy doesn’t answer her question until they get back to the safehouse that night. She packs her small bag with no intention of falling asleep before they are to hop on the helicopter early the next morning.

She scopes out the rooms of the safehouse and plucks a bottle of vodka from the cupboard above the sink and only momentarily thinks about sharing it with someone. Someone who is not here. She cranes her neck around the hallway to look into one of the two bedrooms. Joe and Nicky are sleeping, curled up against the wall with the light still on, fingers interlaced over Nicky’s chest. Andy slips into the room to flick off the light next to the bed. She watches them for only a moment and considers touching them, stroking their hair, to comfort them a little. Instead, fearful of waking them, she closes her eyes and leaves.

She finds Nile waiting for her in the kitchen, leaning against the small island. When she’s sure Joe and Nicky are sleeping and out of earshot, she beckons Nile to the couch and plops down into the only armchair, then tips the bottle upside down as she gulps.

Nile waits patiently for her to finish, and Andy thinks for a moment that she looks so much older than she is.

Andy opens her mouth, closes it. When she speaks, it’s low, “Dahlia. That was her name.”

Nile says nothing. She waits for Andy to continue and wordlessly accepts the vodka as Andy passes it to her, then curls her legs underneath herself after a moment and adjusts the pillow behind her back.

Andy closes her eyes, takes a breath. Nile doesn’t ask questions, just listens.

\--

They were passing through Southern Italy after eight months at sea. Andromache had called off the search for Quynh decades before, and she no longer had any desire to be near the water. It only served as a reminder of her betrayal, her weakness, her pain. The waves that rocked her to sleep spun her into fitful night terrors, night after night, as she woke up crying out for Quynh. It never stopped.

Yusuf and Nicolò had noticed long ago, but Andromache had been determined not to talk about it. Eventually, though, it all became too much, as most things did. She knew she had to put some distance between herself and the ocean, even though the very thought tore her heart in half.

They were making their way through Benevento, heading further in as they searched for jobs. It was supposed to be a time of healing, Yusuf had said, a time to lay down roots and start anew. But naive as he sounded, Andromache did not have to remind him of why they could not do that. He was worried about her, clearly, and he wanted her to find a place to rest, a place to slow down for a while. But Andromache was not so keen. The urge to flee, to keep going, keep going, overpowered her and tugged her along, sometimes dropping her off in places such as filthy pubs or brothels. Anywhere, to spend her nights away. Away from her thoughts, her memories, the waters, the men whom she loved dearly.

Andromache would wake sometimes in the night to the familiar sounds of them making love. She would never, ever leave them behind. But on those nights, it was hard to resist the pull to disappear for a day or two. She would resurface somewhere, in somebody’s house or somebody’s arms, or sometimes in her brothers’ arms, and they would look down on her with so much pain, so much worry, so much love.

She couldn’t handle it. They had to leave Benevento.

They fought, of course, sometimes letting their weapons do the talking.

“Andromache!” Nicolò had called over his blade, “Enough! You cannot keep going like this!”

Their grief was tender, emotional, laced with love and the need to hold on tight to one another. Her grief was white-hot anger, restless, even after so many years, and it begged her to run, to sink, down to the bottom of the black waters where it would finally consume her.

But Nicolò and Yusuf would not let that happen, so she lost. They had been prepared to build a home and a life for the three of them, to give her comfort, if only just for a little while.

But the decision was made for them that summer.

It came in the form of an earthquake that left complete devastation in its path. It tore through Benevento, bringing buildings to dust and blood to the once lively streets. The three of them had sprung into action the day it happened, joints still popping back into their sockets, shattered bones mending as they ran.

They found a cluster of survivors along a street where they used to buy bread and fruits. Where there was once the smell of rosemary and freshly baked crust, there was now a suffocating blanket of smoke and ash, and the too-familiar metallic scent of blood.

They spent hours on their knees, pulling bodies from rubble, shoving heavy stone walls aside, fingers bleeding and breaking and mending in a cycle that seemed to last forever.

Andromache could no longer feel pain by the time she pulled the last body from a building that housed a family of seven. She didn’t look at the body for long. She placed him with the rest of his family, not bothering to wipe the dust from his cold skin. There was simply too much.

It had been hours after the first shock when they heard another weak scream, coming from beneath a building they thought had been empty.

Yusuf and Nicolò worked to shove the rubble out of the way while Andromache forced herself to her feet. Her knees were bloodied, slowly healing from hours of crawling and kneeling on the broken ground. She recognized the building the woman was trapped under as a flower shop that Yusuf had visited only weeks ago. He had come home with a colourful bouquet, showing off some species they had rarely seen before, newly imported. He had plucked a single peony that had been buried in the bouquet and dropped to one knee, holding it out to Nicolò, who took it with a sheepish smile and buried his nose in it.

As Andromache neared the ruins of the shop, she recognized the walls that once held it up, painted a calm violet and yellow. On the dusty ground was a trail of dahlias that lead to the area where Yusuf and Nicolò were rushing to free the woman trapped underneath.

It wasn’t long until they found her. She was wounded, bleeding from her head and her legs, but alive. She was stretched out on her stomach, one arm trapped under a block and the other arm outstretched, desperate for something to grab on to. Nicolò shoved the last of the rubble off of her and took her hand, and asked her if she could move. The woman simply sobbed and her breath hitched in pain and she curled in on herself.

Nicolò turned her over and Andromache watched as any remaining semblance of calm left his ashen face. He shouted something to Yusuf that Andromache did not catch--her ears were plugged with ash and screams. Yusuf helped the woman into Nicolò’s arms, and Andromache’s heart dropped.

The woman was grimacing in pain as Nicolò adjusted his grip on her, apologizing in her dialect. She was saying something, shaking her head from side to side, feverish. She was clutching her stomach, heavily pregnant.

“My baby, my baby,” she was saying, over and over.

Nicolò assured her everything would be alright, and he began to walk with her in his arms, sparing a worried glance at Andromache that he didn’t even try to hide. The woman was writhing in his arms, crying out. Blood had run down between her legs, leaving dark droplets on the pale ground.

Nicolò took the woman to a safe place--not in one of the buildings still standing, as Andromache had warned him of aftershocks, but one of the tents that reinforcements had erected to shelter survivors. The sobs coming from the tents as Andromache passed them were almost unbearable, but the deathly silence that permeated the tents farther away was almost worse.

The woman had suffered contractions from the initial quake, and from the force of the building that came down on top of her. Nicolò spared Andromache and Yusuf few words before disappearing back into the tent for hours. He had medical training, they both knew, but he had never even come close to delivering a baby before. Andromache and Yusuf searched the tents for a doctor, but among the survivors they found only one who was tending to a dying child and suffering his own head injury. They walked back to the tent in a quiet daze and sat in the rubble, waiting.

The poor woman screamed for what must have been hours, and Andromache wondered more than once if Nicolò was torturing her. He came out once or twice to ask for water, or cloths, anything they could find. There was not much in the way of supplies, nor medicine. As the sobs of survivors and moans of the dying slowly quieted, the woman’s screams grew more frequent.

A full moon rose, and Andromache and Yusuf were tending to as many survivors as they could, nursing their wounds, cleaning their blood, comforting the children and the traumatized, when the woman’s screams were suddenly replaced with the shrill cry of a baby.

Yusuf ran to the tent first, and Andromache finished patching up a wound on an elderly woman’s leg before she joined him.

He watched the tent with bated breath, face contorted in fear, worry, anxiety, Andromache wasn’t sure. She placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, wordlessly reassuring him everything would be fine. She pointed no attention to the way Yusuf’s exhausted eyes swam with nervous tears. The baby’s cries had quieted and Nicolò had not yet stepped out. Yusuf had started to jiggle his leg and looked like he was about to lunge at the tent when one of the flaps was suddenly brushed aside.

Nicolò stepped outside, smearing a bloody handprint over the canvas as he closed the tent. He looked ready to collapse, pale like a corpse, and his long hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat. He flicked his bright eyes in their direction and Yusuf all but fell into him.

“Is she alright?” Andromache asked. “And the baby…?”

Nicolò returned Yusuf’s embrace, burying his nose in his neck before he parted them, and smiled, wiping his forehead and leaving a streak of blood. “They are both fine. It’s a little girl.”

Andromache didn’t expect the wave of emotion that crashed into her, but she accepted it as it brought her to her knees. She clutched at Nicolò’s legs and pressed her forehead to his knees, choking on a sob. He bent down to touch her hair as she openly cried, allowing herself the freedom to let go.

“Beautiful boy…” she babbled, feeling relief and gratitude and overwhelming love for her little brother, “Thank you for saving them. You did what I could not.”

She thanked Nicolò and sobbed until he had to return to the mother and child, to check up on them, placing a kiss to her forehead as he left. Yusuf held her afterward and stroked her back, and she buried her face in his chest to block out the rest of the world, the horrors of the day.

In the following days, the woman quickly became ill, and Nicolò didn’t waste a second before bringing her to a place they had found still standing. He placed her in the only bed and spent hours trying to nurse her back to health, dabbing her forehead in an attempt to cool her off, trying to treat her with the little medicine they could find, and speaking to her for as long as she was conscious.

Andromache would watch as he would place the woman’s baby next to her face, speaking quietly to her in her dialect, reassuring her that her child was with her, alive. The baby would kick and throw her arms out, fumbling and gripping at her mother’s nose, her mouth, her chin, and Andromache could only watch in short intervals.

Nicolò tried everything he could to learn the woman’s name, but she could hardly speak, she was so weak. Andromache and Yusuf would leave the ruins that housed them for a few hours every day to ask any survivors if they knew her. No one seemed to know anything about her, but the few who recognized her from the flower shop spoke of her with disdain. She was unmarried, they gathered, and all alone.

She passed away only days later. They never learned her name.

Andromache sat with the infant in her arms that morning as Nicolò sat numb on the floor. Yusuf had draped himself over his shoulders and cried silently, and Nicolò held onto him tight, comforting hand on his arm, but stared at the floor. Andromache hated the sight of it. She had seen Nicolò’s eyes when he was dead, too many times. The resemblance to his gaze then was too similar.

They buried the woman beneath an olive tree, facing the sunset. There weren’t many flowers left to salvage after the earthquake, but they gathered what they could, and they covered her fresh grave with dahlias.

Andromache had held the infant all day, tiptoeing around Nicolò. He was despondent as he dug the grave, and as Yusuf placed the woman inside. She feared for him.

For the first time that day, Nicolò finally turned to face Andromache, holding out his arms. She knew what he wanted, and obliged. She placed the tiny child in his arms, carefully, and he looked down at her, expression unchanging. Yusuf leaned into him and gazed down at the child, then spoke, “My love…”

Nicolò closed his eyes. “We have to find her a family.”

It wasn’t up for discussion. Nicolò’s eyes met Andromache’s and she nodded, offering him a small, somewhat comforting smile. He swallowed and turned to Yusuf, whose eyes were swimming. Nicolò balanced the child in one arm and placed his other hand on Yusuf’s cheek, wiping the underside of his eye with a gentle thumb.

They searched the town for survivors who would take the baby, but no one volunteered. There were few survivors, and the ones who were still coherent were busy taking care of each other. They had a long road ahead of them, Andromache knew. They would all have to rebuild their lives and mourn those they had lost.

That last thought had caught her breath in her throat and she blinked harshly before following her brothers down the road, where they reluctantly made to leave.

They passed through a few joining towns before finding a family who would take the child. Just in time, too, as the poor tiny thing was screaming herself hoarse for a feed.

“Please?” Nicolò begged, dark-rimmed eyes pleading up at a large woman in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, sitting on straw. “She is hungry and cold. She needs a mother.”

The woman’s mouth pinched to the side and she flicked her eyes to the tiny bundle in Nicolò’s arms, wriggling and screeching so loud it nearly drowned out his low voice. She pulled her small child closer to her side, and the child wrapped his arms around her middle.

“Alright,” she said, and Andromache let out a breath. “I will take the child.” She curled her nose at Nicolò and spared a sour glance at Andromache, who didn’t flinch. She would allow the woman to think whatever she wanted. The woman took the child from Nicolò’s arms and brought her to her swollen chest, bouncing her in her arms in an attempt to quiet her screeches.

Nicolò smiled gratefully at the woman and said a prayer, to which the woman looked away. The carriage moved, then, and disappeared down the road.

They were awoken by a series of loud raps on their door the following night.

They had been staying at an inn since they arrived in the next town, too exhausted and stressed from listening to the child fuss for hours to get a proper room. The three of them had been sharing a bedroll, squished tight together, when they jolted awake.

Andromache stood first, reaching for her labrys, and the other two followed suit, weapons poised.

She wrenched the door open, demanding to know who was there, when she abruptly set her labrys down.

The large woman had come back, looking positively strung out, carrying a small bundle in her arms.

“What is this all about?” Andromache demanded, and the woman shoved the bundle to her.

“I cannot take care of this child!” she said. “She will not latch no matter what I do, and I have my own infant and three other children to look after!”

Andromache simply stared back at the woman, face hot with rage, but stoic. Yusuf appeared behind her and accepted the baby into his arms, bouncing and soothing her quietly.

“Please,” came Nicolò’s voice behind her. “We have no food for her here. We have nothing.”

“It is not my problem,” said the woman with finality.

Nicolò was silent for a moment and by the set of his jaw, Andromache knew he was biting down hard on his tongue.

“Thank you for taking care of her tonight,” he said, politely. “Have a good night.” He closed the door on her and turned to Yusuf, already opening the filthy blanket the child was wrapped in and checking her over. On the other side of the door, the woman gasped before stomping away in the mud.

“Nicolò…” Andromache said with an edge to her voice.

“I know,” he replied, tight. He closed his eyes as he finished checking the baby over, and Yusuf brought her to his chest and began to rock her.

“We can’t do that again, boss,” Yusuf said, shaking his head. “I’m not letting that happen again.” He looked at Nicolò when he spoke, gentleness to his eyes, and Nicolò simply nodded.

Andromache sighed and placed her labrys back beside the bed. “Fine,” she said. “She stays with us for now. But we need to find her some milk.”

They both nodded curltly, and Yusuf sat down with the child, rocking her until she fell asleep against his chest.

In the following weeks, they decided to give the baby a name. Andromache was reluctant to do so, worried that if they did then she would grow too attached to the child. She knew that Yusuf and Nicolò were conscious of such a thing, which only worried her more. They would outlive the child in the blink of an eye, and Andromache was adamant on preventing them from experiencing that kind of pain as much as possible. She knew she did not have much choice in the matter, in the end. They had already become attached to the child, herself included, and now only pain lied ahead for them. Knowing this, Andromache still decided to take part in naming the child.

Yusuf had been the first to suggest the name Quynh, which he must have realized was a bit too soon for Andromache, because she flinched quite visibly.

She smiled sadly at him and told him that Quynh had her own name, and that the child should have something of her own, as well.

“I want her to remember her mother,” Nicolò said as he gently rubbed the tip of a waterskin filled with milk over the baby’s nose, waiting for her to open her mouth. They had been very lucky in finding one charitable new mother who had offered some of her milk to the child, urgent to help when she saw the state of all of them, but they knew they would not be so lucky all the time. “I wish I had gotten her name.”

“You did all you could, my heart,” Yusuf said, tucking a strand of hair behind Nicolò’s ear. Nicolò thanked him quietly, arms clearly full, and nodded solemnly at his statement.

“None of the townspeople seemed to remember her name,” Andromache said, slight bitterness to her voice that she didn’t bother to hide. “She was just _the woman who sold flowers_.”

Yusuf blinked for a moment, stiff, before looking down at the infant with a wide grin. “I know your name,” he cooed in a high voice. Nicolò looked at him in question.

“Dahlia.” Yusuf smiled, eyes crinkled at the corners and glistening a warm brown. He was smiling at Nicolò when he said it, and Andromache’s chest felt tight. He grinned at her, then, and she couldn’t help but smile back at him and nod.

“It’s perfect,” she said. Nicolò agreed.

“She’s got gas, Nicolò,” Andromache remarked casually across the fire between them. “You have to burp her or she’ll just keep crying.”

“I know what to do, thank you,” Nicolò said defensively, but struggled to balance the infant over his shoulder.

They had been making their way along the outskirts of Italy, slower than Andromache had wanted, but Yusuf seemed happy with that fact. He had volunteered to search for jobs for all of them in every town they stopped at, but so far they had no luck.

Occasionally, if they were seen carrying Dahlia around, they would be offered a room. Once they noticed that the baby increased their odds of getting free hospitality or free food on the streets, they stopped leaving each other’s sides and took turns carrying the baby in slings. She was starting to get heavier, filling out a bit and looking less skinny and pink. Her hair had started to grow in dark curls, sparse, but so soft. Andromache did not touch her often, but when she did she could not resist the temptation to pet her soft hair or sniff the crown of her head.

The child was wailing by the time Nicolò had gotten her properly positioned over his shoulder. He started patting her back, shooting Andromache a cold stare, which was his equivalent of a dirty look, when she openly laughed at him.

If there was one thing Nicolò had over the rest of them, it was his unwavering patience. He burped the child for ages before she finally spit up all down his back. He hardly blinked and moved to check her wrappings when she started to wail again. That went on for about fifteen minutes before Yusuf leapt up from his bedroll closeby and marched over to the log Nicolò was sitting on.

“Give,” he said, voice rough with sleep.

Nicolò shook his head, bouncing the red-faced babe on his thigh, gently holding her chin in his hand as she couldn’t yet hold her own head up. “I have her, don’t worry. You can go back to sleep.”

Andromache snorted at Yusuf’s exasperated expression and she busied herself with poking the fire when Nicolò shot her a look.

“Nicolò, _please_ , my love, I cannot sleep. You are bouncing her too roughly, let me show you.” He took the baby from Nicolò’s arms and brought her close to his chest, cradling the back of her head while swaying gently and humming quietly to her.

“You are so rude,” Nicolò said. “I was plenty gentle. She just hates me.”

Yusuf kicked his foot lightly. “She does not. Do I need to remind you that I grew up with three younger siblings? And that the youngest was born when I was eleven? Your people are just too rough with your children.” Yusuf _tsked_ and continued to mumble a lullaby to the child.

“Your people?” Nicolò raised an eyebrow, the age-old sign of teasing between them, and an age-old argument. None of them said anything about Yusuf’s choice of words, being, “ _your children_ ”. Andromache sighed loudly at Nicolò’s smirk and stood.

“I will take her for the night if you two are going to make eyes like that at each other.”

Yusuf opened his mouth to protest, still very much busy, and he had just successfully gotten the child to calm down, but Nicolò agreed casually.

Andromache took the child from Yusuf’s arms, assuring him flatly that she would not drop her in the fire, and sat in the dirt, head resting against the log. “You’ve got baby puke all over your shirt,” she heard Yusuf say next to the bedroll, and she stifled a laugh at Nicolò’s “then take it off”.

She gazed up at the sky and began to teach the sleeping child how to navigate the stars.

Andromache’s concern for Yusuf and Nicolò’s attachment to the child disappeared with time, but in its place grew a constant worry for the child herself.

Everywhere they went, she found herself checking back to look at the baby, checking if she was breathing in the night. She did this in private, when the other two could not see. She didn’t want them to worry needlessly, as they already had their hands full and their own heads full with their own unique worries and fears regarding the child.

They had been bringing back groceries to their small rented room just outside of Rome one day when they were stopped crossing through an underpass.

The shadows had moved quickly, revealing several large men, their knives glinting in the low sun.

They moved fast, unsheathing their swords and axe and slicing the men in quick, efficient movements, aiming for the throats or the arteries in the groin. It made a bit of a mess, but it was quick, and the men hardly fought back after a few minutes.

There were a few of them left, only just revealing themselves by jumping down from above. They swung at Andromache first, and she ducked, pivoting on her foot to spin with her labrys as she took down both of their legs. The men cried out and one of them fell back against the wall, clutching at his leg and trying to hold it together as it swung unnaturally.

Yusuf and Nicolò cut the rest of them down, backs to each other as they moved. Nicolò had the child in a sling across his chest and he protected her head as he cut down one of the last men, longsword slicing across the underside of his arm, before he buried it in the man’s chest. So much for not making much of a mess, then.

“Only a coward would sneak up on people with a child,” Nicolò said to the body.

Yusuf finished off the last man with a swift and deep cut to the throat, and the man hit the ground with a dull thud. Andromache checked around, making sure they were all down. Their groceries had spilled all over the ground, milk mixing with blood in a river down the center of the underpass.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she hissed, throwing her head back and sheathing her labrys over her back. “The milk is done for.”

Yusuf might have heard her, but he was busy. He sheathed his scimitar without cleaning it--something Andromache had not seen him do in years--and ran to face Nicolò.

“Dahlia! Dahlia! Nico, is she okay?” He touched Nicolò’s face, then fumbled with the child on his chest, obsessively checking her over and trying to remove her from the makeshift sling.

“She’s fine,” Nicolò assured him, smiling. “She’s okay, Yusuf.” He helped Yusuf remove her, and Yusuf took her and held her between them. He kissed her fat cheeks, her nose, her dark curls, her tiny hands.

“ _Tafali, tafali…_ ” Yusuf muttered, peppering kisses over her curly head, and she giggled. It was one of the first times she properly laughed. Nicolò dropped his sword and touched Yusuf’s cheek, rubbing blood off with his thumb, and brought him in until their foreheads were touching. With Dahlia pressed between them and Nicolò still holding her up, Yusuf wrapped them both in a hug.

Andromache began to pick up their fallen groceries when Yusuf blindly reached out a hand. She checked behind her, thinking they should really go, and shook her head, smiling, and allowed Yusuf to bring her into the hug.

Dahlia grew into a curious little toddler. Eventually, the three of them learned how to manage her through the night, how to feed her properly, and protect her from harm. When she started to walk, it became more difficult to carry her around as they went on simple missions, helping families, returning stolen goods, finding missing people, and so on. They couldn’t send her to sleep with old Arabic or Ligurian lullabies, or even the practially ancient songs of a dead language Andromache scarecely remembered anymore, for the little girl was restless and excitable.

Andromache knew there was no room for a child in their long and violent lives. And surely, not a child so young. She knew that, and yet she loved the little girl.

They slowed down when Dahlia was nearing two and a half. They rounded up what little money they had from doing odd jobs and bought a small house in Verona, a comfortable distance from water, which gave Andromache some peace. Some.

She worried on and off about their little family’s predicament. They all knew they could not settle down and make roots anywhere, and the presence of a mortal child was already worrying enough. She didn’t have to tell Yusuf and Nicolò that, though.

Dahlia was rambunctious and lively, which caused the three of them to constantly fret over her at first, especially paired with her new ability to bolt off, but Andromache soon found her spark endearing. She was a wild little thing, not unlike herself, and she was curious to see what kind of young woman she would grow into.

As she grew, she didn’t call Nicolò and Yusuf her fathers, but instead called all three of them by name, as they called her by name. Andromache supposed it helped a bit, to ease the pain of watching her age so quickly, knowing they would not. But Andromache knew in her heart that they were and would always be her fathers. She was as sure about that as she was that the sun would rise each morning.

Dahlia reflected their personalities, sometimes. Yusuf encouraged her to create art, which she did, spending hours making complete messes and shrieking with excitement at Yusuf’s overzealous reactions to her finished products.

But sometimes her interests were in nature and the outdoors, in the calm and quiet. Nicolò would take her outside as the sun set and she would sit in the grass, staring at ladybugs as they crawled across her smooth skin or focusing on flowers Nicolò presented to her with the concentration of a scholar.

Sometimes, she would hang from Andromache’s arms and beg her to tickle her, and she would, and the little girl would squeal and squirm under her fingers and kick out and laugh until her face went beet-red.

Yusuf and Nicolò would worry more than she did--almost to a comical degree. Andromache knew that children were resilient. It made her feel a bit heartless, but she couldn’t help but laugh when Nicolò would fret after accidentally banging Dahlia’s head against a doorframe, or when the child would trip and Yusuf would scoop her up and cover her in kisses before she even realized she’d fallen, or when she would run down the road and Nicolò would drop all the groceries to run after her.

“What are you expecting, a hawk to pick her up?” Andromache had laughed during dinner, throwing her head back in her chair.

Nicolò had not been amused, balancing the girl on his knee and feeding her spoonfuls of rabbit stew while his face twisted in anxiety at the thought of a hawk taking his daughter away.

By the time she was four, Dahlia was telling long, complex, made-up stories and climbing on tables and trees, helping with dinner, and examining and tasting everything.

Andromache knew they would have to move on soon. They had been living in Verona for a few years too long, and the locals would soon notice that they hadn’t aged. Yusuf and Nicolò were not happy when she expressed this to them, and the three of them argued well into the night while Dahlia slept nearby.

Yusuf argued that Dahlia needed a sturdy place to live, to grow up. Andromache argued that she would grow up fine if they lived nomadically. Yusuf brought up the issue of money and how they would not have enough to feed and clothe her if they left. Andromache reminded him that they had no choice but to leave eventually. Yusuf barked back that their house in Verona was the safest place for her, and Andromache felt insulted by that. Of course she wanted to keep the child safe. The child would _always_ be safe with the three of them, no matter where they went.

Nicolò watched from the sidelines throughout most of the argument, bringing in points when they were needed that had Andromache struggling to convince him they had to leave.

“Can we not wait a little longer?” Nicolò asked, lowering his voice, mindful of the sleeping child in the next room. “Until she is older and will not slip out of my hands every time we leave the house?”

“She won’t, Nicolò,” Andromache assured him. “I will watch her every night and never sleep again if it will make you believe me.”

Somehow, she convinced them, and they left Verona three weeks later.

They struggled to find a place to stay for a few weeks, having no choice but to sleep under the stars most nights. Andromache didn’t mind, of course. The stars were home to her, the first things she remembered in her immeasurably long life. She was born under the stars, and she had slept under them with her mother and sisters, millennia ago, and now she slept with Dahlia under the stars and taught her all the stories she was told about them.

Yusuf and Nicolò had been worn thin, she noticed, and she felt horribly guilty. The child’s energy was draining, and in their current circumstances, they were constantly trying to keep her out of danger, to keep her from running off into the woods or from being picked up by bandits or wild animals, though there wasn’t much of a difference between those two, in Andromache’s mind.

They hadn’t slept in days, and she noticed. Andromache could sometimes last weeks without sleep, having trained her body long ago to operate on adrenaline and short naps throughout the day. Nicolò was always a light sleeper, and he woke early, but even he had limits. It was naive to think otherwise.

Andromache had rebuilt the fire when Dahlia started fussing. She did not want to go to bed, begging to instead stay up and explore, and Yusuf looked like he was nearly at his wit’s end with trying to calm the child. He had tried singing to her, rocking her, kissing her head, all things that worked when she was an infant, but four year olds were very different.

“I’m _hungry_!” Dahlia whined, arching her back out of Yusuf’s grip and letting out one long, high-pitched scream.

“I know, I know, my darling…” Yusuf soothed, weariness to his voice. “I will catch you a delicious rabbit first thing in the morning.”

Dahlia continued to scream, devolving into hysterics as she writhed against the ground. Nicolò came back just then from foraging, and Andromache groaned at the sight of his empty sacks. She would definitely venture off on her own in the morning and gather enough berries for all of them, twice over, as a heartfelt apology.

“Nothing?” Yusuf asked, a little devastated, as he grappled for the small girl’s arms gently.

“Nothing,” Nicolò confirmed, and took the child from Yusuf’s hands, kneeling in the dirt and bringing her to his chest as she fussed. “Nothing edible, anyway. Not around here.”

“Damn it…” Yusuf breathed, and rubbed the back of the crying child’s head, sifting his fingers through her curls. “Please don’t cry, _tafali_. You are breaking my heart.”

Nicolò lifted Dahlia up by her armpits until her face was level with his, and he soothed her in quiet Ligurian, bouncing her slightly on his knee like he did when she was a baby. When she continued to cry, he stood to his feet and lifted her up. Her small arms curled around his neck and her legs bracketed his waist as he continued to bounce her.

“Ohh, _il mio piccola_ , Papa and Baba are here…”

Andromache went stiff. She looked at Yusuf, hoping he would catch her eye, but he was looking at Nicolò, holding their daughter. Their daughter. They had never said it out loud before, in all of four years. They had never referred to themselves as such. Andromache wasn’t sure how to feel.

Yusuf helped calm the child, and with both of them there, she quieted. Andromache stood, unable to mask the concern on her face, as she touched Yusuf on the shoulder.

“You two should sleep. I’ll stay up tonight, don’t worry.”

Yusuf looked like he wanted to protest, eyebrows hiked up his forehead, but even he could not deny his exhaustion. He could hardly keep upright. He glanced at Nicolò, who nodded against the side of Dahlia’s head, eyes half-lidded and dark circles more pronounced, and Yusuf kissed the girl’s cheek as Nicolò passed her to Andromache’s open arms.

Andromache spent a few minutes holding Dahlia over her head, gazing up at the stars and telling her stories. It only took those few minutes for the girl to become sleepy in her arms. When Andromache looked back at the other two, they were cuddled up next to the fire on their bedroll, sleeping soundly.

It took all but ten minutes for Nicolò to awaken and stay awake for the rest of the night. Andromache stayed up with him, as they were both stubborn and she feared he would pass out on his own.

The following morning, Andromache felt fairly alright. She was alert and ready to go foraging. Yusuf had slept like a baby--although that expression had completely lost its meaning now that Andromache knew how roughly babies slept. So, he slept like he hadn’t in decades, curls sticking up at odd angles, eyes puffy from sleep. He woke as Nicolò was dousing the fire and leaned over to press a few quick kisses to his cheek, which had become rather scruffy since they left Verona.

Something was bothering Nicolò, Andromache could tell. He was silent, but not in the way he normally was. It was eerie this time. He floated around like a phantom, bright eyes sunken into his head, and hardly looked up. Andromache had caught him dozing off more times than she could count, sometimes while he was standing upright, sort of like a horse, she thought.

“I will catch food,” he finally said, as Dahlia was waking up. “You can rest, Yusuf.”

Nicolò had the sharpest eye of all of them, and for that reason he was an excellent hunter, but Andromache doubted that he would be focused enough to catch any game in time for lunch.

She tried to express her thoughts to him, but he dismissed her, finally looking her in the eyes with so much guilt that it physically hurt.

“She is hungry,” he said. “I’m her father. I have to make sure she is fed and healthy.”

Andromache sighed, looking at him with love, concern. “Be careful,” she said, instead of offering to go with him. He didn’t want her to come.

He took his crossbow from their pile and leaned down to give Yusuf a kiss. “Sleep, my love. I will be back with food soon.” But he was stopped by Dahlia’s tiny hand tugging at his tunic. She begged him to take her, to show her how he used the crossbow, how to hunt. How could he have denied her?

Andromache did nap, drifting off to the repetitive sound of Yusuf’s whetstone brushing across his and Nicolò’s swords. Her rest did not last long, because she soon was awoken by an abrupt thud next to the fire pit.

Andromache groaned, stretching, and took in the sight of two small rabbits tied by the feet. She looked up at Nicolò in question, and he shrugged.

“There was no large game,” he explained. “All I could get were these rabbits.”

Andromache thanked him anyway, standing up to brush her hands over his tired shoulders. Dahlia had been grasping his hand, but ran to Yusuf as soon as she had seen him. He was still working away at Nicolò’s longsword and he quickly set it down to hug her.

“Did she have fun?” Andromache asked. Nicolò smiled a tiny smile.

“Yes, I think so. She was by my side the whole time, eager for me to catch a _dragon_.”

“A dragon, huh?” Yusuf asked Dahlia. The girl nodded stiffly, and Yusuf’s smile immediately fell.

“What’s the matter, _tafali_? Are you not feeling well?” He pressed a palm to her forehead, her cheek, checked her arms and neck.

Nicolò’s tired eyes went wide. “What is it?” He hurried to the girl’s side, crouching down in front of her, beside Yusuf. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” Yusuf’s face contorted in confusion and concern. Andromache was by his side in a second.

She took the child by the arms and tilted her head up to look at her face. Dahlia whined, her little face twisted in pain, and tried to wrench her chin free from Andromache’s hands.

“Androma..che.. stopit…” she whined, and bent forward in pain.

“What’s wrong with her?” Yusuf cried, panic rising in his voice. “Andromache-”

She peeled the girl’s eyelids open, checking her pupils and cursed under her breath. She then carefully forced her jaw open and looked at her mouth, at her tongue. In an instant, her stomach dropped and she felt it down to her toes, blood rushing in her ears in pulses.

Nicolò was inspecting the child’s fingers, eyes going even wider when he saw they were stained. He took her from Andromache, holding her tiny face in his hands and checking her over the same way Andromache had done.

“Dahlia, did you eat something?” Yusuf’s breath hitched beside him. “Dahlia, answer me! What did you eat?”

The girl was nearly in tears, trying to speak but sobbing and whining in pain instead. She clutched at her stomach and shook her head.

“It’s okay, _piccolina_ , I am not angry, just tell me what it was--please?”

She had never seen Nicolò so panicked before. Never. He fumbled with the girl, holding her mouth open and picking dark residue off her tongue, and Yusuf tried to set her on the bedroll through his panic. Andromache felt sick. The tiny thing was as white as a sheet, and beginning to sweat as she writhed in pain.

“You were right there--” Nicolò mumbled through his panic. “I had you, right next to me--when did you--”

“Andromache, do something!” Yusuf cried, and that was all she needed to get her brain working again.

She gently moved them aside and inspected the child once more, rolling her onto her side. “Berries. She must have eaten some berries--a lot of them, I think.”

“Poisonous?” Yusuf asked, voice high.

Andromache hesitated to speak. She simply looked Yusuf in the eyes, level, and he clapped a hand over his mouth, choking on a wail.

“We have to get help. There’s a trail nearby, right? Perhaps there is a town?” She no longer cared for the moment about being selective about the towns they stayed in.

Yusuf nodded mutely, shaky hands hovering over his daughter, unsure of where to touch without causing harm.

“Come on,” Andromache said, shifting to crouch on her heels. She turned to her other side where Nicolò was slowly standing up, hands coming up to cover his mouth as he stared in horror.

“ _Nicolò_! Are you with me?!”

He didn’t startle. He simply clamped his jaw shut and lunged forward, scooping the small child into his arms as Yusuf helped him position her comfortably.

They managed to flag down a carriage on the trail after a few minutes of walking. It felt too long. There were too many moments to lose, too many moments where the worst could suddenly happen. Andromache didn’t know when the child had ingested the berries, but they seemed to be acting quickly in her tiny body.

Andromache knew she had to stay calm, for everyone’s sakes. She loaded their weapons into the back of the carriage as Yusuf and Nicolò sat with the girl across their laps, touching her face, brushing her hair off her forehead, comforting her in any way they could. Andromache tried to look away as the girl squirmed, clutching at her stomach with hands stiff with pain.

They found a vacant room at a nearby inn, but it still took a long time. Andromache tried her best to keep Yusuf and Nicolò calm, but there wasn’t much she could do to quell their fear.

The small town had no doctors, and Andromache was reminded of the day when Dahlia first came to them. They would have to cure her themselves.

Andromache had plenty of experience with poison, having suffered a great many variations of it herself, sometimes ending in her death and sometimes resulting in days of agony.

The problem was, she had no idea what the child had eaten, when, and how much. She asked Nicolò in the simplest way she could, knowing his panic was certainly shrouding his thoughts. He shook his head, trying and trying to recall, but he swore that she hadn’t left his side.

Andromache pieced it together before he did, or at least, before he could say it out loud. He had probably fallen asleep, only for a few minutes, because that was all it would have taken. She was an adventurous and fast child, and she was painfully hungry. Andromache had seen her stick more things in her mouth than a dog, and the child was much too young to be able to differentiate between berries that were safe to consume and ones that could be poisonous. She remembered Nicolò telling her that there was nothing to forage, nothing edible.

Her thoughts stopped there, because the look on her little brother’s face as he came to the same conclusion was enough to break her, but she would not let it. She took him by the shoulders and told him that Dahlia would be okay, even though they both knew she could not promise that. She told him she would do everything she could to help her, and that she knew he would, too, and that Yusuf was in there alone with her and needed him. She begged him to move, vice grip on his shoulders, tears prickling at her eyes, and he did, controlled and silent.

They worked all night trying to mix a remedy for whatever poison the child had ingested. Nothing had seemed to do any more than take away some of her pain for the time being, but eventually it always came back. Yusuf cried, unable to hold himself together anymore when he saw his child become delirious with pain, unable to string a sentence together.

Nicolò did not cry, and he did not rest. He stayed by her side as she got worse throughout the night, and Andromache left periodically to ask the innkeepers if they had found a doctor yet. There was one a few towns over, but he would not arrive until morning. She just had to make it through the night. Just the night, Andromache said to herself. Just the night, just the night.

When she came back inside, things were quieter. Nicolò was comforting Yusuf, who was crying silently into his palm. Dahlia had quieted, but looked feverish as she squirmed and mumbled. Andromache looked at the girl and said nothing. She looked at Yusuf and Nicolò, and closed her eyes. She stayed with them through it all.

As she feared, in the earliest hours of the morning, before the sun had risen, the child got worse. They had given her more medicine, but nothing seemed to help. They tried to cool her down, to break her fever, but it was too late. She had started to seize.

After her second seizure passed, Nicolò held her upright and encouraged her to drink some water, pressing a bowl to her slack lips. She opened her mouth wide, and he looked relieved for a moment, before the child bent forward and expelled bloody vomit over the sheets.

Nicolò stared at the mess in horror and Yusuf started to scream. He was frantic, begging the innkeeper, who had come to the door, to get a doctor in there, and Andromache leapt to her feet as her body moved for her. With all her strength, she dragged Yusuf from the room and took him outside where she held his face in her hands and tried to calm him. When that didn’t work, she let him scream and sob until the panic had worn off.

Nicolò came outside just before the sun had risen. The world was a deep blue and Andromache felt as if she were trapped underwater. Her body moved on its own, and her voice worked without her. Her hearing was muffled, as if her head was waterlogged or packed tight with cotton.

She watched from a distance as Nicolò stepped out the back doors, down the grassy path, jaw tight, grey eyes on the cloudless sky. She wanted to touch him, to comfort him, just as he had done for her when she’d lost Quynh. He had held her for days, perhaps weeks, while she screamed until she tore her vocal chords and they healed, and then tore them again and again. Her strong little brother, the entire time, had not allowed himself to shed a tear.

She watched as Nicolò continued down the path, almost floating over the ground, light as a spirit, face devoid of all emotion and life.

And then he crumpled. He took one more step and his knee gave out, and soon he was on his hands and knees, still managing to catch himself despite himself, and Andromache could see that he was shaking violently.

She finally got her body to move, but she felt Yusuf spring up beside her. He had been crying against her side, nearly numb at that point, after making himself sick with sobs and begging her to let him back inside the room. She didn’t know why she prevented him from going back. She thought she had been saving him from more pain.

Yusuf caught him. Not in time for him to fall, but in time before his head hit the ground. Andromache let out a shaky breath at the sight. Yusuf was on his knees as well, struggling to keep Nicolò upright as he slumped forward, face still devoid of emotion.

Then Nicolò opened his mouth and screamed.

The sound of it brought Andromache to her knees, and she stayed there for a moment, letting Yusuf and Nicolò alone with their grief. She knew the sound from herself, knew the feeling. It was a horrifying, agonizing sound, and she had never heard it come from Nicolò in the near five hundred years she had been by his side. It kept going. He kept screaming, bending forward until his nose brushed the ground, jaw unhinged as the sounds escaped him without restraint, without control. Andromache could see his face contort in grief, eyebrows creasing, and then his hair fell over his eyes and all she could see was Yusuf try to pull him close before coming close to the ground to meet him when he realized he couldn’t get him to move, sobbing with him.

They held on to each other, likely drawing blood with the strength of their grips, and Andromache sat back and looked at the sky. She would not cry here. She had to be strong for her little brothers.

She steadied herself against a tree and waited it out. She listened, body tense, as Nicolò’s screams picked up speed before his voice went hoarse and he couldn’t scream anymore, so the sounds devolved into incomprehensible babbling, sounding like prayers, or perhaps he was opposing God.

Andromache knew Nicolò had suffered one breaking point before, and Yusuf had told her that was when he had first opposed God, shortly after they both realized they could not die and decided not to leave each other. She knew it was not like this, though.

Andromache swallowed her tears through Nicolò’s desperate pleas to die, for Yusuf to kill him, bring him to Dahlia so he could ask for her forgiveness, hold his little one.

Yusuf’s sobs carried as he begged in several languages, switching between them every few words, “ _I’m here, my love, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, stay with me, please don’t lose yourself, I’m here_.”

That day had been one of the worst. Andromache stayed with them but kept her distance until they needed her. She thought about Dahlia, about her pain, about Yusuf and Nicolò’s pain at seeing her go, and she thought about Nicolò’s guilt, as it undoubtedly was there. She knew all too well. She let herself-- _forced_ herself to think about Quynh, to feel the guilt, to feel her pain. It was almost unbearable.

She knew they were screaming for all of it, because she felt it, too. For Quynh, her love, their sister, their friend. For Dahlia, their child whom they fed and bathed and swore to protect. For all the children Yusuf and Nicolò would never have, because it could never be.

None of them slept that night. The pain carried on well into the morning before Yusuf’s sobs became silent tears down his face and Nicolò became despondent, shutting down nearly completely.

They travelled to bury Dahlia next to her mother under the olive tree. Nicolò was insistent, and did not listen to objections.

When they laid her to rest, he did not pray. Yusuf cried and Nicolò held him and stared at nothing. It frightened Andromache.

While Yusuf cried with Andromache by firelight, embraced her, gathered dahlias and pressed them into books, Nicolò faded away. He hardly spoke, he hardly slept, he starved himself, he did not weep. He comforted Yusuf every day, and Andromache saw how worried Yusuf was in turn.

It lasted ages. It was years before Nicolò could talk openly about Dahlia again, and when he did, he finally let everything out again, breaking down in tears, not as violently and spirit-breaking as the day she died, but enough that Andromache could see the guilt and tension and horror on full display.

“Berries,” he had sobbed. “I’m supposed to know these things. A whole world of dangers we had prepared for and it was _berries_ that took her from us!”

From then on, Andromache made a vow to herself to keep that from happening again. To any of them. Nicolò threw himself into the medical field, perfecting his skills, and Yusuf tried his best to keep their daughter’s memory alive, to sketch her little face, to write down the crazy stories she spun. Of course, Andromache could not have protected Booker from the pain of losing his family, in the end.

\--

“Why you, though?” Nile asks.

Andy caps the bottle in her hand. “Huh?”

Nile shifts in her seat on the couch, rubbing her ankle where she’s been sitting on it. “Why do you put that on yourself?”

“They’re my family. My little brothers,” Andy says, plainly. “I was supposed to protect them from that.”

Nile thinks for a moment. She looks down at the coffee table and purses her lips.

Before she can say anything, Andy cuts in, “It’s impossible, kid. We can’t have children. We aren’t meant to. The pain is just too much. I didn’t stop Book from keeping in touch with his family and look where it got him.”

“What if that’s just him…?” Nile asks, lifting an eyebrow. Andy isn’t sure why she’s suddenly throwing Booker under the bus. “I mean, she was Joe and Nicky’s daughter, right? And losing her was painful, but it didn’t drive them to hurt anyone else.”

“I think it’s more complicated than that,” Andy says, uncapping the bottle and taking a long sip. “Booker’s reasoning, I mean,” she finishes, swallowing loudly.

“So was she the only one?” Nile asks, and Andy is thankful she’s shifting the subject a bit. She’s smart, and her question makes Andy smirk almost sadly. Nile already knows the answer to her question, but she decides to indulge her, anyway.

Andy sighs, leaning back in the armchair. “There’ve been more over the years, yeah. Kids we’ve rescued from wherever, whenever, and Joe and Nicky used to get attached quickly. But none like her.”

“So why was she different?”

Andy holds back another smirk. Nile loves to press. “Well, Nicky helped deliver her,” she takes a swig. “He treated her mother, then we buried her. That little girl had a huge impression on all of us. And…” Andy sighs, “She was the first, despite all the years we’d lived already. She was their first kid.”

Nile looks down. “Man, I can’t imagine how that felt. The guilt…”

“We still feel it, sometimes, like Book. It’s only natural.”

Nile looks up abruptly, then, behind Andy’s head. Andy already knows, which is why she kept talking all profound, but she closes her eyes and takes a breath anyway, before turning around in her chair.

Joe and Nicky are both in the doorway, looking down at them with solemn eyes.

Andy feels compelled to apologize, because they don’t talk about Dahlia, or at least haven’t talked about her for years. She knows Joe still sketches her, or the memories that are left of her, and that Nicky might still dream about her or think about her when he’s treating a sick child. It’s Nile who speaks first, and they turn their heads in unison to look at her.

“Guys,” she says, hesitant.

“It’s okay, Nile,” Nicky says, voice a little rough.

“You can ask us anything,” Joe finishes.

Nile licks her lips and stares them down earnestly. “It _wasn’t_ your fault, guys.”

Joe’s expression changes easily, eyebrows creasing together and mouth going tight with the effort to hold back tears. Nicky’s eyes widen for only a moment and Andy watches as Nile stares him down, softening her gaze, and he does the same.

“Thank you, Nile,” Joe whispers, squeezes Nicky’s arm before walking toward the couch. “Can I have a hug?”

Nile smiles wide, a little sadness still in her eyes, and says, “Of course!” as she squeezes Joe back.

Andy stands from her chair, looks back at Nicky who is still hovering in the doorway. His face is rather blank, but his eyes are soft and sad, old.

“Nicky?” she asks, no real question in mind.

Nicky closes his eyes and stands there for a moment, just breathing. Andy notices his hands start to shake, and she pulls him into a hug without waiting for his approval. When they pull apart, he meets her eyes and nods once, breathing a little heavily through his nose. Andy can feel how wet her eyes are.

Nicky flicks his gaze to Nile and Joe, who are coming closer. “Thank you, Nile,” he says with all the restraint in the world not to let his voice waver.

Nile looks up at him, a mixture of concern, reassurance, admiration, and love all over her face. Andy feels all of it in an instant.

Nicky is the one who moves first, wrapping Nile in a tight hug. When her face is buried in his shoulder, he scrunches up his forehead before his eyelashes flutter, wet, and he lets go.

They don’t even need to say anything in that moment. They just all smush together in a group hug, and Andy can feel Joe crying under her palm. Nicky nuzzles his face into the side of Joe’s and Andy rests her cheek on the top of Nile’s head. She squeezes back.

When they pull apart, after several minutes, Nicky doesn’t wipe his cheek as a few tears drop from his eyelashes. Joe squeezes everyone in another hug before placing a hand at the back of Nicky’s head. Nicky nods to Nile, two more tears falling.

“Thank you,” he says again. Nile smiles.

Joe kisses Nicky’s temple, and Nicky leans into it, eyes closed and eyebrows twisted as he silently cries. Joe addresses Nile, nudging her with his other hand, “Would you like to see some drawings of her?”

And Nile grins and nods enthusiastically, wiping her cheek with the heel of her hand, and Andy trails behind them with Nicky. One more second with him alone, she pulls him in and kisses his forehead, and he squeezes her until they both feel again.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations (apologies if the Arabic and Italian are incorrect! I'm at the very beginning stages of learning them):  
> Tafali // il mio piccola = my baby


End file.
